Napkins in the form of sheets of material intended for wiping and for hygienic purposes are common commercial items (e.g. in restaurants or cafeterias) that may be provided in the form of stacks of napkins from which individual napkins can be readily removed when needed. The dispenser for the napkins should be easy to handle, should protect the napkins until use and should be easy to move to a location where the napkins are needed, such as to a table, a counter, etc.
A common type of dispenser for this kind of napkins is an open box in which the napkins are arranged in a stack standing on an edge of the napkins with part of the napkins protruding through the opening in the box to provide grippability. This is a simple and inexpensive way of dispensing the napkins. However, the protruding parts of the napkins tend to fold over the edge of the box and become ruffled and deformed.
Moreover, as soon as a few napkins have been removed from the box, the remaining stack does not fill the width of the container with the result that the stack may buckle inside the box
A further commonly used option is to arrange the napkins in an interfolded stack which is placed standing on a bottom surface in a container having a dispensing opening at the top of the container. The napkins are then successively removed from the top of the stack through the dispensing opening.
Interfolded napkins are sheets of materials arranged in a stack of superposed sheets which are each folded at least once. The sheets are interlinked in such a way that the separate folded sheets of material form a chain of sheets where each sheet has a leading panel and a trailing panel, the trailing panel being at least partly overlapped with the leading panel of the subsequent sheet in the stack. In this manner, the individual sheets are held loosely together by means of frictional forces arising between the overlapping parts. The sheets may be dispensed from a dispenser by pulling at the leading panel of the first sheet in the stack. In this manner, the first material sheet is extracted at the same time as a predetermined part of the leading panel of a subsequent material sheet is fed into a dispensing position in the dispenser.
The dispenser usually has a lid or cover with a dispensing mouth that restricts the width of the dispensed napkin in order to keep the leading panel of the next napkin to be dispensed from falling back into the dispenser.
When a napkin is extracted, due to the friction between napkins, several napkins might tend to follow the extracted one such that the user is presented with a number of napkins hanging together, rather than with a single napkin. Also, even if the subsequent napkins do not follow the first napkin to the user, the friction between the napkins might result in the stack including the napkins becoming disordered or crumpled inside the dispenser. This in turn might hinder continued extraction of napkins from the dispenser.
To maintain the stack of napkins inside the dispenser during withdrawal of a top napkin from the stack, it is known to use holding means of various kinds. Generally, such holding means or tabs may include various kinds of holding members, extending at least partly over the stack of napkins received in the container. Accordingly, the holding members will extend at least partly over any dispensing opening allowing access to the stack of napkins from a top side thereof.
It is desired to provide an improved or alternative dispenser for dispensing interfolded napkins.
WO 2014/037041 A1 discloses a napkin dispenser including tabs for holding a top of a stack of napkins in a position spaced from an inside of a dispensing face of the dispenser. The tabs are required to meet the somewhat conflicting requirements of being flexible enough to be able to be bent downwardly to allow a stack of napkins to pass during loading, yet also stiff enough to resist being bent upwardly under bias of a spring lest engagement with the top of the stack should fail. Further, the present inventors have found, these flexible tabs tend to angle and curl downwardly in the loading configuration, which causes them to rub against the stack of napkins as it is being loaded.
It is further desired to provide a dispenser with such hold back means and having improved control of a stack loading configuration of the stack hold back means. It is further desired to allow the flexibility of the hold back means, such as thickness and material parameters, to be designed more freely. Also, it is desired to ensure ease of disposition into the loading configuration, yet also make sure of an effective stack engaging configuration.